


Pop an Asprin and Call It a Day

by magniloquentChanteuse



Series: And the Day Turns to Night [3]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Bonding, Everyone Loves Peter Parker, Families of Choice, Grief/Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-10 20:50:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magniloquentChanteuse/pseuds/magniloquentChanteuse
Summary: Or, Five times Tony Stark gave something to Peter Parker that he didn't need (and one time it was something that he did).





	1. C:\Users\TStark\Desktop\Personal_Projects\Spider-Web

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of a couple 5+1s that will bridge the gap between TCBRRG and... the sequel! So yeah, it goes without saying, I would think, that you ought to read that before you read this. Also, this is unbeta'd 'cause I'm too lazy to find myself a beta.
> 
> On that note, if you're interested in, you know, being a beta for me?? HMU. I'd love to chat with you about it.

**May**

 

Tony Stark was famous for a lot of things. His money, his intelligence, his somewhat promiscuous tendencies. But despite popular belief, those weren’t the extent of his traits. There were many sides to Tony Stark that the public never saw.

 

One thing that he took pride in was that he was an excellent host.

 

No guest under the roof of Tony Stark could complain about the amenities or the reception or the service. It was a matter of pride, for him. After all: if one of the richest men in the world couldn’t provide a comfortable atmosphere for a guest, he couldn’t do much at all, could he? So Tony Stark did everything necessary to make his guests feel at home. He had for many years. Now, suddenly, there was a dark mark on his record, and he didn’t like it one bit.

 

Spider-Man was in his tower, barely eating, and sleeping on the couch.

 

Tony _didn’t like it._

 

It was the sign of a poor host that the guests were so uncomfortable that they stayed awake until they passed out against their will in a public space, and it was really grating on Tony’s nerves. It didn’t help at all that he actually cared about the kid: as bad as it would be with some stranger, it was even worse, like this. Now not only was his reputation on the line, but he couldn’t stop _fretting_.

 

Occasionally the kid would disappear into one of the guest bedrooms for a few hours, but Tony suspected that he wasn’t getting much sleep, there. And by suspected he meant that JARVIS reported that he tended to sleep fitfully at best, and only for an hour or two at a time.

 

Tony decided to rectify this problem. It was long overdue anyway, he told himself firmly.

 

Spider-Man needed a room in the tower.

 

He didn’t mention it to the kid, instead taking it upon himself to work with an interior designer to create a bedroom suite like the other inhabitants of the top floors had. He was positive that it would be everything the young man had ever dreamed of.

 

It didn’t take long; he didn’t make any major changes to the architecture or anything, after all, just brought in new furniture and decorations. In just a few days it was ready for Spidey to move in, and Tony couldn’t have been happier about it.

 

He strolled into the communal floor, a jaunt in his step as he sought out the new resident of the tower. The kid, as he had suspected, was sitting slumped low on the couch, staring at the television. Commercials were playing on the screen and Tony grimaced.

 

“Hey, Spidey,” He greeted him, trying not to sound too pitying. The team had talked about it in one of the many secret meetings they’d had about their local arachnid: he seemed to react badly to it. “How’s it hanging, kid?”

 

Spider-Man looked up at him, clearly unsurprised by his appearance. Enhanced humans were a pain to sneak up on, Tony thought regretfully, thinking of the numerous times he’d tried it on one friend or another. It never really went in his favor: even if he did manage it, he soon came to regret it.

 

He rubbed his jaw as he reminisced about Barnes, then turned his attention back to Spidey as he spoke.

 

“Oh,” His voice cracked under whatever voice modulator the guy had tucked away under the mask, giving it the strange electric fuzz for just a moment that would have given the tech away even if Tony didn’t notice it every time he lifted his mask to eat.

 

 _God_ , he wanted to open it up and look at it. It was an impressive little piece of work, especially considering the shoestring budget Spidey must have built it on.

 

“Hey, Tony.”

 

Oh, right, the kid. He’d gotten distracted for a second there.

 

“Are you busy right this second?” Tony raised his eyebrows at the kid, daring him to claim preoccupation. He was watching _commercials,_ for god’s sake, he had time.

 

“Um,” Spidey shook his head. “I guess not. What’s up?”

 

“I have something I want to show you,” Tony told him, chest puffing up a little. There were a few long moments of silence as that mask stared blankly at him before Spidey nodded slowly, shrugging one shoulder at the same time.

 

“Um. Okay.”

 

Watching him stand was almost painful, Tony thought with a cringe. He moved like he was holding his body together through concentration alone: he could practically hear the creaking of ill-used joints and had to remind himself that Spidey was a human, not a robot, but it did little to dispel the illusion as Spidey staggered slightly, regaining his balance.

 

It was like he was drunk, Tony thought, painfully familiar with the way Spider-Man must be feeling right now. He’d been there: too little sleep, too many thoughts. Hell, he’d _been there_.

 

The awkward silence was stretching out again and Tony forced a casual smile, like he wasn’t standing there aching over Spidey. “Ready? Alright, come with me.” He turned on his heel and strode into the elevator, chattering all the while. He didn’t hear Spidey following, but when he turned around inside the elevator he was there, too, so at least there was that. “So I’ve been thinking, and honestly, this is long overdue. You’ve been hanging around here for a while, now, and we all like having you here. Shit, you’re practically part of the team,” He eyed Spider-Man out of the corner of his eye, but there was no reaction to the words. Was Spider-Man even listening? ***

 

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is,” He steered Spidey out of the elevator with one hand on his shoulder, and he tried to pretend that he didn’t notice the way the kid flinched at the touch. “You shouldn’t be sleeping on the couch.” The contact with Spider-Man made it easy to feel the way he tensed at the words.

 

“You— crap, Mr. Stark, I didn’t realize,” His words were like sandpaper, Tony thought with a grimace. Did it _hurt_ , talking like that? “I didn’t think about it. I didn’t mean to cause any problems.”

 

Tony shot Spidey a surprised look, then frowned as he realized the kid was misinterpreting him. “No, no, not like that,” Tony corrected, but Spidey didn’t relax under his hand. Tony pulled away, feeling pretty uncomfortable. “I just mean… you deserve better than a crappy guest room. So, look,” Tony stopped outside the closed door, practically preening with pride. “This is for you.”

 

Spidey looked at him blankly— or, at least, as blankly as an expressionless mask could manage. He didn’t seem to grasp what Tony was saying to him. How much sleep had the kid gotten, recently? Tony was starting to worry that this week’s count was in the single digits.

 

“Open the door,” Tony prompted him, waving one hand towards the knob, and Spidey turned to look at it, hand moving in that mechanical way to grasp the knob. It took longer than Tony would have thought for it to turn: he had no idea why the twerp was hesitating for so long, and he was trying really hard not to get impatient, but this had been a long time coming and he was excited about it, damn it. Why was the kid just standing there?

 

But then the knob turned and Spidey pushed the door open, stepping forward to block the door completely, the little shit, staring inside mutely.

 

Tony craned his neck to look over Spider-Man’s shoulder. He already knew what it looked like, of course— he’d seen it when it was finished. A king sized bed, a modern-style desk, a walk-in closet and a bureau that had cost more than it had any right to.

 

Only the best for Tony’s friends, he thought proudly.

 

The silence dragged on for an incomprehensible amount of time. Tony waited expectantly for the first few seconds, but as the lack of reaction dragged on, his nerves returned and he longed for a glass of bourbon.

 

“So?” He prompted after nearly a minute, trying not to sound like this was grating on him as badly as it really was. “What do you think?” He kind of expected another minute or so of brooding before another flat, emotionless answer, so the immediate reply took him by surprise.

 

“I can’t accept.”

 

“What?” Tony blinked at him, baffled. “What do you mean, _you can’t accept?_ ”

 

Spider-Man took a step backwards, out of the room and back into the hall, but it seemed more like falling than walking. “I can’t. I don’t want it.”

 

“You don’t want it?” Tony was just parroting him, hardly living up to his genius reputation. It was a bad look for him, Tony knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to come up with anything else to say for a few moments. “Why the hell not? What’s wrong with it?”

 

“Nothing,” Spidey’s voice had sharpened. “Nothing’s wrong with it. I just don’t want it.”

 

“Spider-Man,” Tony’s frustration leaked into his voice. Well, less of a leak, he had to admit as he crossed his arms, and more of a flood. “I had this done for _you_.”

 

“I’m _not interested_ ,” Spidey’s tone was a spark in kindling and it surprised Tony into a few beats of silence. Spidey took his opportunity and turned on his heel, stalking away back into the elevator at a pace just short of a run.

 

“What the hell?” Tony gasped aloud as the doors slid quietly shut, glancing into the bedroom. Had someone painted a message in _blood_ while he wasn’t looking, or something? Jesus Christ, that kid had run off like he’d seen a damn ghost. “JARVIS, I’m not being crazy, right? That was weird, right? It’s not just me?”

 

“That behavior was unexpected,” JARVIS agreed as Tony wandered into the room. Maybe Spidey didn’t like blue, he thought with a frown, glaring daggers at the wallpaper. “Although there isn’t enough data to suggest why he reacted the way he did.”

 

“No kidding,” Tony muttered, scuffing one shoe against the plush carpeting. “Not enough data. Well, whatever, I guess. Kid doesn’t want it, that’s his choice. Can’t blame a man for having preferences. Back to the drawing board. Scrap everything from the Spider Web folder, JARVIS, just clear it out. We’re starting over.”

 

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS agreed.

 

“Maybe he was overwhelmed,” Natasha mused later, as Tony bemoaned the events of the afternoon. “I imagine it’s not very often that someone makes an offer like that.”

 

“No kidding,” Tony grumbled, dissatisfied, fingernail picking at a crack in Dum-E’s paint. “That’s why it was such a big damn deal, and he shot me down. Stubborn asshole.”

 

“I’m sure it wasn’t personal,” Nat watched him with distaste, but he ignored it. Sure, he was getting paint chips everywhere, but this was _his_ tower, and he could get as many paint chips as he wanted on the floor. “People brought up in poverty can often have strong reactions in a situation like that.”

 

“Poverty?” Tony’s finger stopped it’s movement for a moment, but then went right back to its task. “You think he grew up poor?”

 

“Oh, I’m sure of it,” Natasha agreed, stretching her arms above her head. Anyone else and Tony might have stared at the way her back arched, but Natasha could drop kick him right out a window if she wanted to, so he kept his eyes to himself. “You’ve seen him. Any time we give him anything, he reacts the same way. He gets all worked up, like he never thought we’d just _give_ him things. He definitely grew up without.”

 

“I figured that was just… Spidey,” Tony grimaced as a piece of white paint jabbed into his nail bed, flicking it out. “All bouncy and excited and whatever.”

 

“Sure,” Nat shrugged one shoulder in his periphery. “But it’s common amongst lower-income people. Tony, if I were to give you ten dollars, you wouldn’t give a shit. It wouldn’t make a damn difference one way or another because to you, that’s nothing. To _most_ of us, that’s the case. But to him— imagine giving him ten dollars. He’d be ecstatic. He’d tell you what he would buy with it, planning it out, trying to communicate his appreciation by letting you in on his thought process.”

 

“Hmm,” Tony allowed the realization that Spidey was poor, even compared to the everyman, to settle in and decided that it mostly fit. “But how does he afford his tech? The web shooters, the voice modulator? That had to come from somewhere.”

 

“His food budget, maybe,” Nat said, voice sour. “Or maybe his electricity didn’t get paid on time that month. Beats me.”

 

“Hell,” Tony hissed through his teeth, reluctantly turning to where he could access his screens. “People really live like that?”

 

“Don’t rub your money in my face.”

 

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Tony argued, flipping open the empty Spider Web folder. “So you think it was too posh, huh? Well, I can fix that. I can… work with that. I just need to try again.”

 

“Maybe you should just let him get settled in for a while,” Natasha turned to look at him fully, and even without looking Tony could see that her eyebrows were raised skeptically. Tony snorted.

 

“Settled in? How’s he supposed to get settled in when there’s nowhere for him to relax, huh? Damn,” He frowned down at his screens. “I didn’t even get the chance to tell him that I took all the cameras out of there. Well, I’ll make sure he knows, next time. Maybe that was a part of the problem,” He suggested, looking at Natasha. “Maybe he thinks I’m still trying to ferret out who he actually is.”

 

“Maybe,” She agree, but the way she was examining her nails made him think that she disagreed. He frowned over at her.

 

“Alright, Madam Spy, what’s your theory on this one?”

 

“Hmm? Oh, no theory, really, I just think he knows we’ve given up on the whole secret identity thing. I think he trusts us, now, to not go digging around. I think he might even realize that we’ll actively ignore hints towards his identity.”

 

“Hints?” Tony’s eyebrows lifted at her. “Wait, so are you saying you’ve seen some hints to his identity?”

 

Natasha shot him an exasperated look. “Weren’t you listening to what I just said? We’re _ignoring_ them, remember?”

 

“Right,” Tony waved a hand dismissively, although the thought niggled at his mind for a few more seconds before he pushed it away. Anyway, so you don’t think that’s it, huh? I wonder what’s holding him back.”

 

“Hard to say,” Natasha sighed. “Since he won’t really talk to us. At least, not the way I wish he would.”

 

“Or at all,” Tony countered. “That kid has been downright _grim_ lately. God, he’s a mess. It seems like he’s barely himself. That whole Doc Ock thing really messed him up. All the more reason,” he said firmly, locking eyes with Natasha. “For me to give him somewhere safe he can stay. Somewhere comfortable. I want him to feel welcome here, not like he’s trapped in this tower until we manage to track down those imposter Avengers. Don’t you want him to feel like he has a home here, Nat?”

 

“You know I do,” Natasha was frowning at him again, nails forgotten as he got under her skin. “I care about him as much as you do. You know I want him to be happy. I’m just not sure that this is the right way to go about it. Spidey doesn’t need a _bedroom_ , he needs _help._ Psychiatric help, probably.”

 

“Yeah, well, he won’t talk to a therapist,” Tony muttered resentfully, jabbing a little more forcefully than he needed to at the holographic controls. “So this is what I’ve got. Maybe if I can get him to relax a little, he’ll get more sleep, maybe start working through some of his issues in private.”

 

There were a few moments of silence as Tony scrolled through an array of paint colors. Start from scratch, he told himself. The quiet continued for long enough that Tony had started to think that Nat wasn’t going to speak again.

 

“That’s all you can think to do, huh? You just want to help him.” She sounded sad, Tony thought, somewhat pitying. At least it wasn’t aimed towards _him_. At least, it probably wasn’t. Or _mostly_ wasn’t. Hard to say for sure.

 

“Well, yeah,” Tony agreed, disgruntled. “Like you said, I… care. I want to do what I can for him, even if it’s just something dumb and simple like this.”

 

“Designing him a bedroom personally is hardly dumb or simple,” Natasha’s voice was smiling, but Tony just rolled his eyes, not looking towards her again.

 

“Obviously,” he agreed. “Nothing _I_ do is dumb or simple. Hey: do you think this color is too bright for paint?”

 

\---

 

**June**

 

“Spidey!” Tony’s hands propped on his hips as he stared down at the young hero, propped on his elbows at the kitchen table. Bruce was cooking nearby, but Tony paid no mind to the fact that he’d clearly just interrupted their conversation.

 

“Um,” Spider-Man was clearly taken aback by the shout, but he appeared to be having a good-ish mental health day, so Tony was going to take the chance he saw. “What’s up?”

 

“Come with me,” Tony demanded, having decided already that it would probably be a bad idea to declare his intentions immediately. After all, the reception had been somewhat less than warm the first time he’d tried to give Spidey his own room.

 

“It’s almost time for lunch,” Spider-Man answered uncertainly, head shifted slightly towards Bruce, indicating that he was looking over at him. Bruce caught the movement, too, waving a hand at him.

 

“Go ahead,” Bruce invited him. “I’ll have JARVIS tell you when it’s done.”

 

Spider-Man shrugged one shoulder in a move so painfully similar to last month’s uncomfortable encounter in the living room that Tony shuddered internally. “Okay,” he agreed, pushing himself to his feet. It was less awkward than last month, at least: the duct tape the kid was using to keep from dissolving into a mess of lethargy on the floor was holding up pretty well. Tony wished suddenly, nearly desperately, for real healing, instead of all this hiding his emotions crap, but he couldn’t exactly complain. He was far from a beacon of emotional wellbeing, himself.

 

“Now, don’t get mad,” Tony said with a frown as he led Spider-Man into the elevator. The hero tensed minutely, but didn’t interrupt as Tony continued. “I know you got mad last time, but I think I have it worked out, now.” The elevator opened onto the floor that the Avengers slept on and Tony stepped out. Spider-Man reached out and touched his elbow with his fingertips, snagging Tony’s suit and jolting him to a stop.

 

Tony looked back, frowning at him. “What’s the big idea? Don’t rip my suit.”

 

“I told you I didn’t want a bedroom,” Spidey said quietly, voice tinted with emotions Tony wasn’t adept enough to identify for sure. Tony’s genius was well distributed across his many talents, but he was already in the habit of disregarding social cues, and that made it a little more difficult to catch on in situations like this.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Tony agreed, shaking his head. Spidey let go of his sleeve. “But give me a chance, here. I just want to make you comfortable, okay?”

 

“I’m comfortable in the guest room,” Spidey lied, and it felt so false in the air that there was no way Spidey didn’t hear it, too. Tony decided to let the lie slide, instead just giving Spider-Man a skeptical look before answering him.

 

“Just look at it,” he cajoled, and he took the slump in Spidey’s shoulders as acquiescence. “Come on.” He turned, then, and continued down the hallway, “I know you weren’t thrilled the last time I did this, so I changed a few things. I thought that you might like this, better. Tell me what you think.” He opened the door himself, this time, striding in so that Spider-Man wouldn’t be able to block his view, this time.

 

It looked kind of crappy, to him, but he had been assured by multiple sources that this was probably more like what a young man of Spidey’s age might be expecting from a bedroom. A more modest bed, queen sized, still with tasteful and expensive linens. The desk was wood, now, although Tony had provided a desk chair that had somehow managed to cost more than the table itself had. The walk-in closet remained, but the bureau had been moved inside it, clearing up space for a small living area. A couch, Tony thought distastefully, hoping that Spidey wouldn’t _sleep_ on it. He’d provided a bean bag chair, as well, thinking of the number of times Spidey had planted himself in Clint’s on the common floor. He seemed like he liked them.

 

“Tony,” Spider-Man’s voice was soft and sad. Tony grimaced, then smoothed out the expression as he turned to look at the kid.

 

“The windows open,” he tried, casual and apathetic, the way he only was when he _really_ cared about something. “And the bathroom’s right in there.”

 

Spider-Man was staring at the bean bag chair as Tony tucked his hands into his pockets, doing his best to look like it didn’t matter to him whether Spidey would accept this time or not. It took him a minute to notice how Spider-Man’s hands were shaking.

 

“I _can’t_ , Tony,” Spider-Man’s trembling voice distorted, his fingers twitching like he wanted to grab onto something. “I can’t. Please.”

 

A deep sense of disappointment bled out around Tony’s heart and into his shoulders, making them slump despite himself.

 

“Sure, no, yeah,” He shrugged, waving a hand in the air by his head, as if swatting away Spidey’s words. “That’s fine. Sorry to pull you away from your lunch. I’ll be down in the lab if you need me.” Tony turned, and Spidey didn’t try to stop him as he strode away. God _damnit._

 

“JARVIS,” Tony said as the elevator doors slid shut around him. Spidey hadn’t stepped out into the hall, yet. “Clear out the folder. We’re starting again.”

 

It was three hours before JARVIS announced that Steve was asking to see him.

 

“Yeah, yeah, the guy probably just wants to chew me out,” Tony grumbled. “Alright, JAR, let him in.”

 

“Yes, sir.” There were maybe fifteen seconds of quiet, then, before the elevator opened. Rogers stepped inside, hands in his pockets, where they belonged.

 

Tony was going to break his supersoldier fingers if he touched anything in this lab again, damnit.

 

“Tony,”

 

“Ah, Capsicle,” Tony interrupted, rolling his eyes without turning to look at Steve. “What have I done _this time_ to warrant a lecture from America Incarnate himself?”

 

“I’m not here to lecture you.”

 

“Sure,” Tony agreed with a drawl, head tipping back. This man could be such a pain in his ass, sometimes. “And I’m not halfway to creating the smallest man-controlled nanovessel ever conceived.”

 

“Are you?”

 

“Obviously,” Tony scoffed, finally swiveling his chair towards Steve, who had taken his hands out of his pockets. Tony narrowed his eyes, but refrained from mentioning it. It didn’t look like he was trying to touch anything. _Yet_.

 

“Wow,” Steve’s eyebrows were up, impressed, and Tony allowed himself to preen for a moment before brushing off the pride and leaning forward.

 

“You might as well get on with it,” Tony beckoned with one hand. “I’ve got more important things to do than sit around.”

 

“I really don’t intend to lecture you,” Steve told him earnestly. “I wanted to ask how it went, today.”

 

“How it went?” Tony racked his brain. Had he had a press conference that he’d forgotten to attend or something?

 

“With Spider-Man?”

 

Tony blinked across the empty air between them, surprised. “How’d you even hear about that?” He demanded. Tony certainly hadn’t been the one to tell him. Sure, they all knew that a room on their floor was being renovated, and they could probably put together why, but how did he know he’d shown it to Spidey today?

 

“Natasha told me.”

 

Well, that explained how Steve knew, and Tony knew better than to bother wondering how Natasha had found out.

 

“So how’d it go?” Steve pressed again, emotion in his eyes. He looked so desperately hopeful that it took something out of Tony to tell him.

 

“He turned me down,” He admitted, shaking his head once, sharply, and Steve visibly deflated.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah.” Tony ran a hand through his hair, a long, frustrated sigh working its way out of him against his will. “I don’t know that the hell that kid’s problem is. It’s not like I’m making him commit to hanging around or anything, I just want him to have his own goddamned room. Jesus. What is it about that that he doesn’t get? He’s impossible to talk to, sometimes.”

 

“It might be the PTSD,” Steve suggested with a dejected shrug, hands sliding back into his pockets. Tony’s brow furrowed.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“He might be pushing us away because of his mental illness,” Steve answered, grimacing. “Trying to keep to himself because he’s afraid of getting close to people.”

 

“Sounds like you might be projecting a little, Cap,” Tony deadpanned back at him, earning himself a dirty look for his trouble.

 

“Don’t give me that,” Steve chastised him. “You did the exact same thing after the Battle of New York.”

 

“What?” Tony frowned at him, feeling a swell of anxiety under his collarbone.

 

“You invited us to stay in the tower,” Steve reminded him. “Then disappeared for _weeks_. It was almost three months before I saw you for more than two or three minutes at a time. I didn’t see you for days, sometimes.”

 

“That’s…” Tony scowled down at his crossed arms. “Not the same thing.” Was it?

 

“Whether it is or not,” Steve was saying. “Something’s obviously wrong. There’s no doubt about that. And we need to figure out a way to help him.”

 

Tony sighed again. “You want me to stop.”

 

“No.”

 

“No?” Tony blinked, looking up at him.

 

“He needs to know how much we want him here,” Steve said firmly. “How much we care about him. And I think that you doing this for him is a great way to go about it. I think that maybe it’ll sink in that you’re trying to make him comfortable here. So…” He gave Tony a bracing smile and a nod. “Keep up the good work.”

 

“Sure,” Tony agreed, bewildered. “Will do.”

 

\---

 

**July**

 

Tony and Spider-Man didn’t make it back to the tower until the sun had begun to crest the horizon. Although there had been next to no physical exertion, on Tony’s part, even just _watching_ Spidey fighting tired him out.

 

“You keep worse hours than I do, kid,” Tony chuckled, reaching over to give Spidey a slap on the back. Spider-Man stifled a yawn even as he nodded.

 

“My sleeping habits are kind of off track,” he agreed. “But hey, if you’re going to be up anyway, it’s not a bad way to spend the time.”

 

“For sure,” Tony agreed, casting him an appraising look. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Spider-Man. You weren’t lying. You really know how to handle yourself out there.”

 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” The kid preened, looking proud of himself. Tony was proud of him, too, and for a few moments there was an overpowering swell of affection in his chest. Thank god there was no one else around to see him but the twerp.

 

“Alright, alright,” Tony snorted. “Don’t make me regret giving you a compliment. You should get to bed, you look dead on your feet.”

 

“Only if you do, too,” Spidey shot back at him, heading for the elevator. Tony was right behind him, feeling the late night in his bones. God, he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

 

“I intend to,” Tony’s mouth twisted wryly. “You wore an old man out, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

 

“I am,” Spider-Man answered with a teasing warmth. “Very proud.” Little shit.

 

“You ever going to let me move you into a permanent suite?” Tony asked him suddenly, and the silence that met him nearly drove Tony into hasty backtracking, but he managed to hold his silence long enough that Spider-Man spoke first. Not much of an accomplishment, with that kid, but hell, it had been a close thing.

 

“I’m good in the guest room,” Spidey promised as the elevator opened onto his floor. “Thanks, though. Night, Tony.”

 

“Night, Spidey.” Tony watched the kid go, a deep frown settling onto his face. He _had to get this right._

 

\---

 

**September**

 

Spidey— god, _Peter_ , it was _Peter_ , why was that so hard to remember? — was staying. He was staying in the tower, he was going to officially move in. Tony didn’t mention the fact that he’d seen Spider-Man— _Peter_ — sneaking in with some kind of spider-silk pouch late the night he’d introduced himself, but he was pretty sure that whatever was inside was the last of his belongings.

 

He couldn’t believe that Peter had been living on the streets for so long. It still made him mad to think about. That stubborn little jackass could have just come to him. Hell, he’d been trying to get Spider-Man in here for ages. Finding out that he’d been homeless since _January_ … god, that just rubbed him wrong.

 

He was here, now, though, Tony thought as he waited outside Spider-Man’s— _Peter’s_ — room. “JARVIS, he’s coming, right?” Tony asked impatiently,

 

“Yes, sir. Spider-Man is on his way.”

 

“Alright,” Tony let out a puff of air, eyes closing for a moment before he turned and entered the room. Peter— Spidey, no, wait, he had it right the first time— would come in when he arrived, Tony was sure.

 

Tony took in the room critically. The walls between the numerous windows were a pale shade of sky blue in an attempt to capture that feeling of freedom he was sure Spidey felt when he was swinging. The white curtains complimented, he had been assured, but he supposed that interior design wasn’t _really_ his strong suit.

 

But still better than the average Joe, Tony decided proudly, examining the queen bed and the wooden desk. Both were less stately than the first time he’d put this room together for the resident arachnid— wait, did Natasha count? Hard to say— but they were still surely nicer than what Peter Parker had owned at any time before in his life.

 

That thought made Tony uncomfortable. Would it feel to Peter like Tony was trying to show him up? Flaunting his wealth? Would it feel too different from what he’d had before? Would he really be _comfortable_ here?

 

Well, he told himself with a grimace, that was what the beanbag chair was for. And, failing that, there were the rafters. He’d probably like that.

 

Tony looked up at the ceiling, where Tony had installed beams across the length of the room: they would be perfect for making webs between, should the desire strike. It was surely for the best, Tony decided, that he’d scrapped the spider habitat idea: no teenager would have been happy in the room full of pillars exclusively for climbing and webbing up. Or, at least, not as their only living space.

 

It was still an idea for the gym, but that could wait until he finished _this_ project.

 

“Tony?”

 

He could hear that the kid had stopped in the door, but Tony just continued staring up at the ceiling as his anxiety got the better of him. God, he couldn’t even look the kid in the face. “Hey, Spider-Man,” Tony grimaced. “ _Peter_. Sorry. Habit.”

 

“That’s okay,” His voice was so _young_. Tony still wasn’t over it. “You… wanted to see me?”

 

“Yeah, I did,” Tony agreed, training his gaze out the window, now, as he crossed the room to stand by the desk. “I’m not taking no for an answer, Spidey. You agreed to live here, so you need a real room.”

 

Tony braced himself for another rejection. It was becoming almost an obsession at this point, he admitted warily: designing a room that Peter wouldn’t be able to say no to. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get it down right.

 

“I’m not saying no.”

 

That threw a wrench into Tony’s spiraling thoughts and he turned around. Peter was standing there in the door. He was a child, Tony thought with an ache that tore into his guts. He was just a kid. Fuck. Peter was standing there, looking so goddamn small in the doorway of this room, and he was accepting.

 

Up until that moment, Tony realized, he hadn’t understood that Peter was staying. But he _was_. He was really staying.

 

This stupid kid, Tony thought, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he got embarrassingly emotional. His stupid teammate, brother, kid, whatever the hell he was— he wasn’t going anywhere. Tony was scared out of his goddamned mind. What if he messed this up? Whatever it was that they had— what if he _fucked it up_?

 

There was fear in Peter’s eyes, he saw now that he was looking at him. He was afraid, too. He was shaking. But he wasn’t saying no. He was staying.

 

“Well,” Tony blinked, a coolly professional expression on his face. From the upward twitch of Spidey’s lips, it didn’t fool him. “Good. Well, this is your bedroom. I trust you don’t need a tour. Cap’s on your left and Natasha’s on your other side. Barton is across the hall from you. Let us know if you, uh, need anything. Or— or JARVIS, obviously.”

 

The fear in Peter’s expression was being replaced, Tony realized, with affection. “Right,” he agreed. “Obviously. I’ll let you know if I need anything.” He stepped inside the bedroom, then, looking around, and Tony hastily passed him to leave, giving him some time to explore. “Tony,” Peter called behind him, and Tony paused. “Thanks.”

 

“Sure, sure,” Tony waved a nonchalant hand over his shoulder. “It was nothing.” 


	2. Uninvited and All the More Welcome

**October**

 

_ Natasha felt a hand brush along the back of her shoulders and she smiled briefly, casting a glance to the right, where she caught his eyes for just a moment before he turned away. She didn’t allow her attention to stray for long, though, turning quickly back to where she was reassembling her gun. No time to get distracted: although he was the teacher, for now, it was never a sure bet that the others weren’t watching. It was never safe to assume that one wasn’t being judged. _

 

_ The Red Room was unkind to poor students, so Natasha wouldn’t let herself become publicly distracted. Privately, however— _

 

_ “Barnes,” she breathed, their faces close together late that night. He was out of breath, staring at her with those intense eyes. “We really shouldn’t keep doing this.” _

 

_ “I know,” He agreed, his voice smoother than it had been when he’d been unfrozen. It had been rough, then: the cold and the disuse had worn it into a ragged rasp. “If they find out…” _

 

_ “They’ll kill me,” Natasha ran her fingers through his hair. “And you’ll go back on the ice while they try and figure out where your programming failed.” _

 

_ James nodded slowly, his forehead lowering to touch hers, but he didn’t kiss her again. They were both quiet for a long time, their skin sticking together as their sweat began to cool. _

 

_ It took ten more minutes for him to finally roll off of her, but the cold metal of his fingers still rested against her wrist, and after a few moments she twined her hand with his. She could see his jaw clenching even in the dark. _

 

_ “Maybe…” her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Maybe it’s worth the risk.” _

 

_ He was silent for a few moments longer before he turned to look at her, and the emotion in his eyes floored her. _

 

_ “I’m in love with you,” he told her, and she swallowed hard, blinking against the earnestness of the statement. _

 

_ “That’s…” She needed a moment to breathe, but she managed to get out another word after that. “Unexpected.” _

 

_ He huffed a laugh, refusing to look away from her. “That’s all you’ve got to say?” _

 

_ “No,” Natasha replied, just shy of defensively. “I suppose… I might be in love with you, too.” That made him laugh again. _

 

_ “You might be? Bitch.” He didn’t get further than that before she’d elbowed him in the face, sending him rolling away with a groan, clutching his nose. _

 

_ “Call me a bitch again and see what happens to you, sweetheart,” She crooned, satisfaction in her smirk as she sat up. He shot her a teary-eyed glare and she would have made fun of him for it if she didn’t already know that was involuntary. Low hanging fruit, she sighed to herself. _

 

_ “Go fuck yourself,” He growled through the muffle of his fingers, and she swung her legs out of bed. _

 

_ “Mm, no need,” Natasha answered with a flippant shrug, finding her clothes and pulling them back on while he watched. “Get some sleep, Soldier. Oh, but first you’d better come up with a good explanation for what happened to your face.” She went to the door and cast a glance back at him. He was propped up on his elbows, watching her go. That almost frightening look of longing was still on his face. “Good night.” _

 

_ “Good night,” He answered, and the next morning he was gone. _

 

Natasha stared up at the ceiling, heart pounding as she tried to stuff down the long-repressed horror of finding the man she loved gone. It was in the past, she reminded herself. Neither of them felt the same way anymore: too much time had passed, too many things had taken place, and neither of them were the same people anymore.

 

She mostly didn’t think about Barnes in the context of the man she’d known back in the forties, when she was young, but sometimes her past liked to sneak up on her. She didn’t like how it had changed her.

 

Never again, she had promised herself not long after Barnes had disappeared from the Red Room. For many years, she had kept that promise to herself. 

 

There was a thump through the wall from next door, followed by a yelp, and Natasha grimaced as a swell of affection flushed through her heart. That stupid kid, she thought wryly. Peter Parker made her break her promise to herself. 

 

Natasha rolled out of bed and left the bedroom, going to knock on the next door over.

 

“Peter,” She called through the door, listening for a response on the other side. One would expect the soundproofing to be better in Stark Tower, she mused to herself as she heard him stammering and scrambling. “Are you alright in there?”

 

The door swung open and she was suddenly face to face with the young hero, who was clearly out of breath and more than a little flustered. Despite him having been living on this floor for several weeks, this was the first time she’d seen him with bedhead, she realized with a snort of laughter at the sight of it.

 

“Hey, Nat! I’m— I’m swell, in here, totally peachy,” He leaned against the doorframe, aiming for nonchalant, but the kid missed both his goal and the door in the same moment, stumbling. “Good morning, by the way. Why do you ask?” He managed to prop his elbow against the door the second time, clearing his throat.

 

Natasha peered past him into the bedroom, trying to catch a glimpse of what he might have been up to, but he pulled the door closed a little tighter next to him, face reddening. “I heard a noise,” She answered evenly, gauging his reaction. “Just making sure you hadn’t hurt yourself.”

 

“I’m fine,  _ mom _ ,” He scoffed, but the way his eyes drifted to the left was something of a tell. Her curiosity was rising, now, past normal levels and into pure nosiness.

 

“Call me your mom again, and see what happens to you,” She crooned, then suppressed a flinch. Stupid spider-kid.

 

“Heh, sorry,” He was looking at her again, and Natasha’s raised eyebrows were beginning to intimidate him, she could tell. “So, uh, what time is it?” He asked, sliding out of the room and closing the door with a click. “Time for breakfast, you think? I’m gonna go upstairs. You coming?” He was moving past her, then, towards the elevator, and she cast one more glance towards his room, temptation beckoning, before she turned to follow.

 

“I imagine Steve will be up already, at least,” She agreed, stepping into the lift after him. “Lord knows if Tony ever made it to bed. The others probably have the good sense to probably still be asleep.”

 

“I’m not sure it’s good sense on Clint’s part so much as laziness,” Peter mused, and Natasha’s lips quirked. If there was one thing this boy was good for, it was roasting Barton. The two of them never missed an opportunity to give each other a hard time.

 

The elevator doors opened and the morning took a sudden downward shift.

 

“That isn’t what I asked you,” Steve wasn’t yelling, exactly, but it was a close thing. “You’re avoiding the issue.”

 

“Oh, I’m avoiding the issue?” So Barnes was up after all. “And here I was, thinking I was just asking for  _ clarification _ . But hell, I guess you’re the expert, right? You always know best, right? You’re the  _ captain _ , after all.”

 

“Oh, very mature,” Steve came into view as Natasha stepped out of the elevator. He and Barnes were standing in the living room, the full length of the couch between them. “Is that what this is going to be? Another argument where you act like you’re the victim just because of  _ rank _ ? We’re not in the military anymore, Bucky, that’s in the past. You don’t get to pull that card.”

 

“Oh, of course not,” Barnes’s voice was sharp and sarcastic. “Because we’re  _ equals _ now, right? That’s how you see us, right? You’re not little anymore, so that automatically puts us on a level playing field.”

 

“God, why do you always do this?” Steve was leaning forward, confrontational, but Barnes wasn’t backing down. “I don’t think I’m better than you, okay? I don’t think that. I don’t know where you get that idea from.”

 

“From your whole goddamned Captain America act, Steve! You’re so high and mighty about it, you don’t even stop pretending when we’re  _ alone _ . This is not a movie! This is not some stage show! This is our  _ life _ , and you do not get to be  _ Captain America _ with me!”

 

“Oh, okay,” Steve’s arms opened, spreading wide. “Okay, sure. I’ll just drop that whole aspect of who I am whenever I see you. That’s what you want, right? You just want me to go back to being your helpless, sickly friend that you got to protect. You want to be the big man, Bucky? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Well you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that that guy is gone. He’s not coming back. And this is who’s left. This is who you get.”

 

“Why the hell are you allowed to pull  _ that _ card? Fuck that, we’ve both changed, asshole, and we both knew what we were signing up for when we decided to try this.”

 

“That’s what  _ I _ thought,” Steve challenged, glaring across the gulf between them. “And yet here we are.”

 

The elevator doors closed behind her, but Steve and Barnes were distracted enough by their argument that they didn’t notice Natasha immediately. She noticed, however, that Peter hadn’t gotten off the elevator.  _ Damn _ it.

 

She cleared her throat and spoke up. “Boys.” It came out icier than she was expecting, but she didn’t correct her tone before continuing. “You’re scaring Peter.”

 

The men both looked towards her, surprised by her presence, and they were both still scowling, still mostly absorbed by their argument. “Peter?” Steve echoed, eyes scanning over her as if she were hiding him in her pocket.

 

“He was with me,” She agreed, arms crossed. “Until we came up here and found you two fighting like cats and dogs.”

 

Barnes didn’t have Steve’s good grace to look ashamed, but he did fall silent, looking away.

 

“Get your shit together,” She advised coldly. “And keep it private. You don’t need to be fighting like that in front of him.”

 

She didn’t wait for a response, instead turning to reenter the elevator, which JARVIS, bless him, had sent back in order to provide her with a snappy retreat.

 

“Where did Peter go, JARVIS?” She asked as the elevator began heading back down the shaft.

 

“He’s returned to his bedroom, Ms. Romanoff,” JARVIS informed her, a tint of sadness coloring his tone, and Natasha nodded, letting him deposit her on the correct floor. It wasn’t really a  _ parallel, _ standing in front of his door for the second time that morning, but she wished that it wasn’t happening again at all.

 

“Peter,” She called again, rapping softly against the door.  _ This _ might be a parallel, she thought with a sigh. She decided against asking if he was alright in order to drive away the thought. “Can I come in?”

 

There were a few moments of silence, then a quiet, barely-audible, “Yeah.”

 

Natasha opened the door and stepped inside. She didn’t immediately see him as her eyes scanned over the room: empty, unmade bed, beanbag chair dented but unoccupied, desk chair abandoned on its side halfway across the room from the desk. There was dust all over the floor.

 

She looked up and found a nest of webs draped between the exposed beams: one patch looked conspicuously fresher than the others. Maybe he’d fallen through, Natasha considered, glancing again at the dust on the floor. Maybe that was the sound she’d heard this morning.

 

“You up there, Spidey?” She called, and the webs shifted as he moved above them.

 

“Yeah, I’m here.” It hurt her to hear how dejected he sounded behind the ineffectively forced cheer. “What’s up?”

 

“Can I come up?” Natasha watched as the web shifted again, and then there was Peter, leaning down over the edge. He was wearing his mask, she observed with disbelief. Was he trying to hide his face from her? Did he really think that it would  _ work? _

 

“Sure,” He agreed, and a moment later he had flipped out of the web, sliding down a thread to hang upside down just above her. “There’s, uh, not really stairs or anything, so,” He held out his hand and she took it without complaint, letting him pull her up into the enclosed space above his bedroom.

 

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” she drawled, casting a glance around. It seemed even more likely, now, that Peter had been sleeping up here. There were blankets and pillows lying abandoned near the section of webbing that had fallen through, and she could see his laptop complaining of a low charge further in.

 

“Oh, thanks,” Peter rubbed a hand over the top of his mask in a familiar gesture. It was strange to see, now that she knew he was trying to scrub that hand through his hair. “Wait, um, that wasn’t sarcasm, was it?”

 

She shot him a glance, then leaned over to ruffle the top of his mask. “No, Peter, it wasn’t sarcasm.” Natasha managed to settle her weight more or less evenly on the section of web Spidey had deposited her on, sparing only a few moments of jealousy for the easy way Peter scampered around the teetering space. “So are you doing okay?” She asked without further preamble, and Peter paused for a moment on the other side of the makeshift room, then slowly closed his laptop.

 

“Yeah,” He agreed. “I’m okay.”

 

“I know it can be hard to see adults fighting, especially when you’re young,” Natasha continued with a frown, but Peter interrupted her with an uncomfortable laugh.

 

“No, no, it’s okay, really,” he assured her, flapping his hands at her. “I’ve heard, uh. I’ve heard arguments before. It’s not that big a deal. I just kind of felt like… that should be a private moment? Like they wouldn’t like it if they realized we were listening in, so I just kind of… decided to come back later. Sorry for not warning you.”

 

“Is that all?” Natasha nodded slowly, deciding whether or not to accept the explanation. She wasn’t sure that he was telling the whole truth, but she was worried that prying would further upset him. Maybe she should just let it lie, for now. “Alright, I’m glad to hear that.” One of her fingers plucked at the threaded webbing underneath them. “This looks intricate. How’d you manage it?”

 

“Oh,” He brightened. “Yeah— it’s these new web shooters,” He held up one wrist, caressing the technology strapped there. “Tony and I have been working on them. I could do complex formations before, but never anything like  _ this _ . I never had the parts, you know, never had the budget— Tony said that if I’d had all the resources, I would have eventually gotten to this myself, though,” He was beaming under that mask, Natasha was sure, and she was glad that he was cheering back up. “So that’s pretty cool, right? That Tony Stark thinks I can invent the same stuff as him?”

 

“He knows brilliant when he sees it,” Natasha offered, and Peter laughed again.

 

“Aw, come on,” He was sliding his fingers along the strands of webbing, now. There was a moment of pause. “He thinks I’m brilliant?”

 

“You are brilliant, you dweeb,” she teased, and his shoulders relaxed a fraction. Peter started to object and she quickly continued. “Accept the compliment,  маленький паук , before I do something to you that you wouldn’t like.”

 

“Thank you!” Peter squeaked out, giggles causing another swell of affection inside her that she found it difficult to resent.

 

“So, you and Tony have been working in the lab together?”

 

“Yeah, we have,” Peter preened, relaxing again. “And he said that this is just the first thing on the agenda. Now that we’ve got these done, he’s going to show me more about the upgrades on my suit, and then he’s going to let me work on my own. I was thinking that maybe I’d start with—”

 

Natasha settled carefully back onto her elbows, content to let Spidey talk himself out. It was definitely the easiest way to cheer that kid up.


	3. The Feeling of Falling but Literally

**November**

 

It was the shaking against his shoulder that woke him up.

 

“Five more minutes,” Clint mumbled, pushing one hand weakly towards whoever was bothering him from the other side of his blanket cocoon. There was the far-away sound of an answering voice, then the chill and cold of the air as the blankets were pulled away.

 

It was Tasha. Obviously.

 

“Tash,” Clint groaned, squinting at her through the bright-then-dark light of the room. “You know I can’t hear you. Hand me my—” His hand was flapping towards his bedside table, but Nat caught him by the wrist and thrust his hearing aids into his hand before he managed to finish the request. “Oh. Thanks.”

 

“-an you sleep through this?” Natasha was griping, her voice coming into the range of his hearing as he fit the first aid in. “I thought that was the point of the lights. You said they’d wake you up better than the siren.” By the time the second was settled snuggly into place, Clint had woken up enough to realize that, yes, obviously, the lights were flashing for a reason. And that was because they had a mission call.

 

“Gotta come up with a better system, I guess,” Clint yawned, pushing himself up on one elbow. “Okay, JARVIS, cut the lights, yeah? I’m up.”

 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, sir,” JARVIS replied, and Clint rolled his eyes.

 

“Cut the sass, too, would you? Okay, Nat, mission, I got it. I’ll get up. We meeting at the Quinjet or are we briefing first?”

 

“We  _ were _ going to brief, until you decided to sleep in,” Natasha answered, jabbing at his ribs with one finger. Ow. “Get up. We can talk on the way.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Natasha moved out of the way in time for his legs  _ not _ to hit her, but she waited until he was fully upright before turning and disappearing out the door. That left Clint alone in his room to actually get up and get suited up.

 

It was weird, Clint reflected, how difficult it was to get out of bed for so many of the Avengers. Nobody mentioned neurosis in the superhero job description, but Clint had a talent for spotting things, and he sure was spotting a lot of them these days.

 

Banner, obviously depressed. Stark had some kind of anxiety disorder. Barnes had PTSD. Spidey was still grieving. Nat and Steve seemed  _ mostly _ fine, most of the time.

 

Clint looked in the mirror and snorted. No point delving into his own issues. He had plenty of time for that. He got dressed, instead, and jogged out into the hallway, hoping the physical activity would give his brain the jolt it would usually be getting from coffee. At this point, he reflected with a grimace, there wasn’t even enough adrenaline associated with this part of a mission to give him even a little kick.

 

_ Lame. _

 

The floor was quiet— not that that was saying much, coming from Clint. Natasha complained constantly about the thin walls, but even with his aids, Clint didn’t usually hear much from the other rooms. For the best, he supposed, considering there was at least one couple in the tower.

 

That was another thought best put aside for now, he decided as he entered the elevator. It would be more pertinent to note how many  _ B _ names there were on this team. Barton, obviously, and Barnes and Bruce were both double whammies, bringing the total up to five. What was Spidey’s name? Peter— Peter something… Barker? Six? No, wait, he was another tool with an alliterative name. Peter Parker. Probably. He couldn’t really remember for sure.

 

God, what time had he gotten to bed last night? He was still tired. He hoped Tasha had packed him some coffee to go. Someone else might need to fly the jet.

 

The doors opened, then, revealing the Quinjet sitting open in its bay, and Tasha was standing outside, waiting for him with a coffee cup in hand. That angel.

 

“Hey, thanks for waiting,” he drawled, eyes on the travel mug in her hands. His heart broke as she took a pointed sip from it. 

 

“Mm. Sure. Would have left without you, but Steve insisted. Now get your lazy ass on the jet.”

 

Clint sighed, nodding, and slumped his way up the ramp into the belly of the ship. The pilot’s seat was empty, he noticed with a sigh. He supposed he was still on flying duty. Fair enough.

 

“Morning, folks,” he lifted a hand in greeting, still blinking somewhat groggily. There was a round of muffled replies that he mostly ignored, aside from shooting a reassuring look towards Spidey. The mask was on, but there was nervousness in the set of his shoulders.

 

It was their third mission since he’d joined the team, but the kid was still afraid of flying. Not that Clint could blame him: after he’d come out with the story about his parents dying in a plane crash, no one really could. That only made him prouder that the guy still rode out with them every time Fury called.

 

“Alright, where we headed to?” He asked with a yawn, settling down into his seat. There was the objective, on the screen in front of him, along with a heading. “I swear, you guys don’t even need me except for takeoff and landing. One of these days Stark is going to upgrade this thing so that it can do everything by itself and I’ll be off the team.”

 

“If we ever kick you off the team,” Steve answered from the back. “It’ll be for chronic lateness.”

 

“Har, har,” Clint rolled his eyes, ignoring the chuckles from the captain. “Shut your gobs, I’m trying to concentrate right now.” Conversation quieted, then, and Clint focused on easing the jet out of the hanger.

 

He didn’t need to focus, really, but it was nice to have the quiet. The sunlight was a little too bright, though. He needed some shades.

 

“For the record,” That was Tony, leaning against the back of Clint’s seat. “The Quinjet can already take off and land by itself. It’s just still in the testing stages. You know how prototypes can be. Gotta take it slow.”

 

“Right,” Clint answered dryly. “I’ll just say that I’m damn glad I’m not on  _ your _ payroll.”

 

“I could still kick you out.”

 

“Do it,” Clint challenged. “I bet you can’t find any roommate as cool as me.”

 

“We’ve got Spider-kid, now, so don’t go making any bets you can’t back up.”

 

Peter was giggling in the back, now, so at least there was that.

 

“Sure, sure, Stark. Now, if you don’t mind, I actually am kind of busy flying a multi-million dollar special aircraft that, while I’m not technically responsible for paying for it if it breaks, I’m still  _ responsible _ for it, being the pilot. So if you could go twiddle your thumbs in the backseat with the other kids, I’ll have us there lickety-split, okay?”

 

They did, after all, have a couple hours of flight time ahead of them, and Clint did  _ not _ want to spend the entire time getting hounded by  _ Tony Stark _ . He was a good guy, Clint supposed, but that man could be hella annoying.

 

The quiet chatter from the others was a soothing mental backdrop for his frazzled brain; he hadn’t been up for very long, yet, and it had already been a pretty crazy morning.

 

“So this is a Loki thing?” Spidey was asking, and Clint was glad he did, because no one had gotten Clint up to speed, yet. “You guys have fought him a couple of times already, right?”

 

“Right,” Steve answered. “He has a bad habit of getting up to his more nefarious deeds here on Earth, where  _ we  _ have to take care of them.”

 

“If that man would just stay home for a week at a time,” Tony was groaning. “Maybe we’d get some damn peace.”

 

“What is it he’s trying to do? Take over Earth? Enslave humanity?” Peter asked, sounding a little too fascinated. Good man.

 

“No, it doesn’t seem like it,” Natasha answered. “It seems like he’s casting spells on the inhabitants of New Zealand— Wellington, more specifically— and turning them into animals. He’s probably just trying to use them as bait to lure Thor into another scuffle. Lord knows the two of them get all out of sorts if they go a  _ week _ without fighting.”

 

“He’s turning people into animals?” Peter asked, more suitably horrified. “Just to get to Thor?”

 

“Just to get to Thor,” Steve sighed. “I don’t even know if he knows this is happening. We’ve called for Heimdall, but there’s no telling whether or not he’s managed to get a message to Thor.”

 

“Inter-planetary politics,” Peter mused, a wash of awe flowing through his words. “Never thought I’d end up fighting a god who was cursing people just to annoy his brother.”

 

“Those two have the worst sibling relationship I’ve ever seen in my life.”

 

Clint tuned them out, then, instead focusing on the instruments in front of him. That was really plenty of knowledge, as far as he was concerned; shoot the god, not the animals. Easy.

 

They arrived over New Zealand without further event, but then everything went to shit really quickly, and before Clint could really register what was happening, he was trying to get a parachute over his shoulders as he tumbled through the air at fifteen thousand feet.

 

The Quinjet had exploded, he thought with the fleeting snatches of brainpower he managed to scrape together as he managed to get his pack into place. He pulled the rip cord and he could hear the cloth snapping out behind him right before his body jerked sharply, teeth gritting with the pain that came with the sudden change in speed.

 

The Quinjet had exploded, he thought again, cutting his eyes on the bright, sunny blue of the sky as he tried to spot his teammates. Why had the jet exploded? Logic would assume Loki saw them coming and had some kind of ass-kicking spell that he decided to use on them.  _ God _ , that sucked. Where was everyone?

 

He saw a chute unfurling to the east, lower down, and he raised a hand to his ear— he couldn’t hear much over the roar of the shredding plane, but he could feel the comm still there in his ear.

 

“Guys!” He shouted, still scanning for the sight of more chutes opening. There, above him— that looked like the kid. At least he was okay. “Everyone alright? Who hasn’t pulled their chutes?”

 

“I’m good,” Natasha’s voice came immediately. “And Spider-Man’s above you. Tony? Steve?”

 

“Little busy!” Tony called over the comm. “Trying to keep all this debris from smashing you losers out of the sky!” Clint had to give the guy props for that; the sky was still raining plane parts, but Iron Man was doing a kick-ass job of keeping them safe, despite the fact that they were sitting ducks.

 

“Steve? Where’s Steve?” Peter sounded panicky.

 

“My chute’s not opening!” That was Captain America, sounding tense, but not fearful. “Tony?”

 

“I’ll find you—  _ shit _ —”

 

And things were getting worse again. The Helicarrier went screaming by, Tony propping it up from below. The kid was hyperventilating in Clint’s ear.

 

“Peter, calm down, it’s okay,” Natasha was saying, but Clint wasn’t paying attention to them. He was looking for Steve. It was difficult to sort through all the falling equipment to find the flailing human form, far below, but he managed to spot him eventually.

 

“Stay calm, Cap, Tony’s gonna get to you in just a minute, here,” Clint told him through the comm, but another piece of plane broke off and went spinning between them, obscuring Cap from sight. The grunt, followed by ominous silence, was not a good sign.

 

“Cap?”

 

It was too quiet. The plane was fading in the distance— so was Tony— and that just left the three chutes hanging in the air as Steve and the debris fell away from them.

 

“We have to do something!” Peter was yelling. “Where’s Tony?”

 

“I can’t just drop the jet!” Tony snapped back, but his voice was tight with terror. “You want me to blow up half of New Zealand with this thing?”

 

“We have to help!” Peter sounded like he was going to freak out. Jesus.

 

“Calm down, Peter, Tony will be right back,” Natasha was trying to reason with him. “There’s nothing we can do from here.”

 

Peter didn’t agree, apparently. He was pretty far away, but Clint could still see the way he looked up at the ballooning cloth above him, hands clinging to the cords supporting his body. He saw the momentary hesitation, then the way one arm stretched up above his head.

 

“Peter!” He shouted, straining forward in his own harness. “No!” 

 

He couldn’t see the strand of webbing, but he saw when Peter pulled down and the chute collapsed, sending the teenager plummeting towards the ground. Clint’s heart stopped as Natasha screamed the kid’s name.

 

He could see the way the kid angled his body downwards, reducing his air resistance as he pulled the chute close to his body, moving fast through the debris field as he threw an arm forward, pulling himself along faster with the use of his webs against large hunks of metal.

 

He was going to die, god, that stupid kid was going to get himself killed, Clint thought with growing horror as he stared down at the slowly approaching city far below.

 

He couldn’t see him, Clint realized with dread. He’d disappeared into the falling parts and Clint couldn’t see him. Natasha had fallen silent, too, he realized, and everything was quiet, now that the plane was out of earshot. The both of them were helpless, he thought, looking towards where she was hanging from her parachute, staring down. They were  _ helpless. _

 

“I’ve got him!” Peter called over the comm, and Clint wanted to feel relieved, but he knew that this wasn’t the end of it— the kid couldn’t open his chute with all the metal tumbling around him— it would get slit all to hell and then they’d be screwed.

 

He couldn’t see what was happening. He couldn’t  _ see _ .

 

“Peter!” That was Tony. “I’m on the way back. Just— just stay calm! Keep hold of Steve and I’ll be there soon to get you!”

 

“I’m getting us out of here,” Peter countered determinedly, but Clint couldn’t manage much emotion past his heavy fear. It was probably just going to pull him down, faster, Clint thought, swallowing. There was a bird flying, off to the east, far down, Clint could see. Some kind of sea bird. It wasn’t bothered by the destruction in its periphery: it was just coasting along, high in the air. Clint could relate.

 

“Okay— okay— just, be careful, would you? Jesus, kid, you’re giving me gray hairs.” Tony’s voice was trembling despite the casual tone he tried to layer over it.

 

“Hey, what are all these new suit upgrades for if not saving unconscious teammates from falling to their deaths, right?”

 

“Lots of things, kid. A million other things.”

 

Then there was quiet again. Tony was coming, Clint knew. He was coming. But the debris was getting so close to the ground. How would he find them? His heat cameras would be  _ useless _ in that field of burning metal. They would never get found like that. God, Clint wished he could  _ see  _ them.

 

It was quiet. Natasha was still staring downwards, trying to see something, trying to spot an opening parachute, but there was nothing. If Clint couldn’t see anything, how could Natasha? It was Clint’s  _ job _ to see things and he couldn’t see  _ anything. _

 

It was so, so quiet. A breeze ruffled Clint’s hair, and he could hear the ripple of cloth above him, but that was it before it was quiet again. The bird, in the distance, let out a cry as it swung lower, towards the sea. It was so quiet that Clint could hear it even from all the way out here.

 

It was quiet for so long. Too long. Clint closed his eyes.

 

“There!” It was Natasha, and he looked down again to see an opening parachute. It was further west, a tiny spot in the distance, towards the ground, but he could see it. Steve’s, he realized, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Spidey had gotten Steve’s chute open.

 

A red parachute opened a few seconds later, barely visible.

 

“Oh my gosh,” Came Peter’s breathless tone. “Made it. Wow.” He giggled, sounding just a little hysterical. “That was so scary, oh my gosh.”

 

Natasha was laughing. Tony was calling him an idiot over the comm. 

 

Clint closed his eyes and let out a long breath.


	4. Cold at the Windows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, here am I again
> 
> With another chapter. Thank you, spicey!!!
> 
> Woo!

**December**

 

Bucky could feel the cold of the winter air radiating off the glass as he stood in the dark common room. Everywhere else in the tower was warm, untouched by the chill, but this close to the windows, he could feel the hint that it actually was cold outside.

 

Things were so different from when he’d been frozen— so different from before that, when he’d just been Bucky Barnes. The world was a new place, and it was terrifying, and it was warm, and it was different.

 

The elevator opened, behind him, and Bucky turned to see who else was up this late.

 

Peter, Bucky saw. Of course. It really could only have been him or Stark, and the scientist was probably still locked up in his lab getting up to some kind of hellish experiment that continued to drive the world farther and farther from the one Bucky had known, growing up.

 

“Hey, kid,” Bucky greeted him, and Peter looked up, laying eyes on him.

 

“Oh. Hey, Bucky,” Peter gave him a little wave, and just looking at him made Bucky hurt. He looked so much like Steve did, when he was that age. God, he looked so fucking sad it killed him a little more inside.

 

“You’re up late,” Bucky’s hands shoved into his pockets, more out of the comfort of an old habit than anything else. It wasn’t as if his metal arm was going to warm. “Nightmare?”

 

“No,” Peter shook his head. “Can’t sleep.”

 

“Oh,” Bucky turned back to look over the glowing city. He was looking towards Brooklyn, on this side of the tower, but he couldn’t really pick anything out, from here. “Sorry to hear that.”

 

“Thanks.” Peter went into the kitchen, then, and Bucky could hear him puttering around for a few minutes. “You want coffee?” He called after a few minutes, and Bucky sighed, turning back to face the empty, dark door.

 

“You sure you should be drinking coffee?” Bucky asked critically. “JARVIS, what time is it?”

 

“It’s currently three fifteen in the morning,” JARVIS answered primly, and Bucky grimaced.

 

“I’m sure,” Peter answered from beyond the doorway. Bucky slumped his way over to enter the kitchen, eyes searching for the boy in the dark. “I’m not going to sleep tonight.”

 

“You wanna talk about it?” Bucky asked, leaning against the wall. His eyes were adjusted enough, now, that he could see Peter standing at the counter near the coffee machine, pressing a button and starting the machine gurgling.

 

“I don’t know,” Peter answered with a shrug, turning around and hopping up onto the counter. “It’s dumb.”

 

“Would Bruce agree that it’s dumb?”

 

“Bruce is my therapist,” Peter answered with an audible grimace. “He says my feelings are never dumb.”

 

“Then that includes now,” Bucky answered, crossing the cool— not cold— floor to the table. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s your choice. You do whatever you want to do. But if you do want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

 

There were a few moments of quiet between them as Bucky pulled out his favorite chair and sat down, facing the door. Peter was either debating, Bucky decided, or trying to get his words in an order that he thought would make sense. Bucky never did very well with emotions, and he was no therapist, but shit, he could listen. He could at least do that.

 

“Tony gave me my Christmas present today,” Peter finally said, voice slow and quiet, like he was still trying to figure out how to phrase his worries even as he started talking.

 

“Oh, yeah?” Bucky didn’t look at him, giving him all the space he could even as they both stayed put on each end of the kitchen. “How’d that go?”

 

“It was… weird,” Peter answered. “I have… a lot of baggage with Christmas, now, I guess, and he’s… pretty intense about it. The holiday, I mean.”

 

“I guess so,” Bucky agreed, but then he fell silent, leaving space for Peter to continue.

 

“He got me a car,” Peter said, and there was a swirling mix of emotions in his tone that Bucky couldn’t pick out. Fear, maybe. Regret. Awe. Resentment. There was more, but he wasn’t sure what.

 

“A car?” Bucky repeated, brow furrowing. “God damn.”

 

“Yeah,” Peter laughed, and there was tension in the sound. “Yeah, a  _ car _ . I’m sixteen, he said, I ought to learn to drive. Do you know what kind of car he got me? A  _ Maserati _ . I went to their website to see how much they charged for their cars and the  _ cheapest _ one was like, seventy-five thousand dollars. I closed out of the tab when I saw that. I didn’t want to see any more.”

 

“That’s not that much, I guess, to a guy like Stark,” Bucky said with a grimace.

 

“It’s a lot to  _ me _ .”

 

“Yeah, kid,” Bucky agreed with a long exhale. “Yeah, it’s a lot to us.”

 

“It’s just… overwhelming, you know? I wish he hadn’t gotten it for me. Not that I’m not grateful— it’s so generous. Like, I can’t imagine— it’s  _ so generous _ . But… what am I supposed to do with a car like that? I can’t drive that. I don’t even have my permit yet, and he bought me a  _ Maserati. _ God, just thinking about it is gonna give me a stroke.”

 

Bucky let out a snort of laughter. “Alright, kid, just settle down. It’s not so bad. Maybe you can just tell him you don’t know how to drive.”

 

“I already tried that,” Peter admitted miserably. “He said he’ll get me driving lessons after the New Year.”

 

“Well, we already knew that guy couldn’t take a hint. Can he return it?”

 

“It’s a  _ Maserati. _ ”

 

“Yeah, I got that. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

 

“Right— sorry. I’m just… this is stressing me out.”

 

“Just take a deep breath, Peter,” Bucky advised. “It’s not a huge deal. If you don’t want to drive it… just don’t. Leave it parked in the garage. That’s what Stark does with most of  _ his _ cars, right?”

 

“I guess,” Peter agreed with a sigh. “I just… that would be so rude, you know? I can’t just not drive this car he bought for me. But I can’t just  _ drive _ it. I don’t know. I’m being dumb.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, startling a laugh out of Peter. “You are. But that’s fine. I think you ought to talk to Stark, tell him what you’re feeling.”

 

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Peter answered flatly. “Tony doesn’t do feelings so well. He always gets uncomfortable and changes the subject if someone so much as brings up a genuine emotion. I don’t know that I really want to cross that line with him. It would probably just make everything more awkward.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky had to agree with that. “You’re probably right. I think a lot of us are that way, to be honest, though. None of us are real good at… emotions.”

 

“Yeah,” Peter laughed again, but the sound didn’t sound as light as Bucky was used to hearing from the kid. It was still weighed down by his stress. “Yeah, that’s true. None of us are real good at that.”

 

“You’re doing pretty good, though,” Bucky commented. “Better than the rest of us, for sure. I don’t think you’re telling me everything, but hell, you told me  _ something _ , and that’s a hell of a start.”

 

“What do you mean?” Peter asked, frowning in the dark. “I’m not telling you everything?”

 

“You mentioned before that you have a lot of baggage about Christmas,” Bucky reminded him. “You think that has something to do with why this car thing is bothering you so much?”

 

There was a long silence as Peter digested that. It was the kind of silence that meant that Bucky had definitely been correct, and now Peter was filing the new knowledge in with the rest of it, sorting through the situation with the new filter over it.

 

“Maybe,” Peter admitted after a while, confirming Bucky’s suspicions. “I… this is… crap.” He took a deep breath, then started over. “This is my first Christmas since Aunt May and Gwen died. I had both of them, last year. And it’s the second Christmas since Uncle Ben. It all just feels… weird, without them. Geeze. You’d think that… with everything that happened this last year, that would be the least of my worries but… Christmas just feels  _ wrong, _ without them here. Like I shouldn’t be celebrating.” He stopped talking, but Bucky didn’t say anything. He knew the kid well enough by now to recognize that there was more that he wanted to say, and he was holding himself back from saying it. The best way to get someone else to talk, Bucky knew, was to be quiet.

 

“I look at that Christmas tree out there,” Peter said quietly after a few minutes. “I look at the garlands and the stockings and everything… and it makes me want to scream. And it’s not like I want to take Christmas away from you guys… I don’t want there to not be Christmas in the tower or anything. God, that’s the last thing I want. I just… don’t want to be here for it. I want to just… stay in my room until the middle of January. I want to sleep through Christmas and New Year’s and not wake up until all of it’s been cleaned up and it’s all gone.”

 

A sigh. “But you guys are my family, now, and… it’s better to make new memories than to linger on the old ones, right? I should… I should have a good time at Christmas because that’s what they would have wanted. They wouldn’t want me to just be moping around under my blankets, trying to sleep for a whole month. Aunt May would be devastated if she knew that that was what I was doing. And I want to make her happy— that’s a stupid way to put it. She’s dead, she’s not going to be happy or sad about anything I do. I guess I mean… I want to live up to what she would have wanted for me.”

 

Bucky listened to the gurgling of the coffee pot between Peter’s bursts of speech.

 

“I want to enjoy Christmas,” The teen continued, sounding miserable. “But getting presents just makes me think about all the people who died in the last two years. And seeing the Christmas tree makes me wish that they were here to see it, too. And drinking eggnog makes me think about how they’re never going to drink eggnog again. And watching Christmas movies makes me think about all the times I watched those movies with my family. And that’s all gone, now, and it’s like their ghosts are just hanging over me all the time. I know that’s dumb, but… everything is different, this year. And it’s never going to be the way it was again.

 

“I tell myself that it’ll fade— that I’ll stop being sad about it, eventually, and I’ll love Christmas again as I spend them with you guys, and that I’ll replace all the sad memories with good ones, and it’ll all be fine. But that doesn’t really make it easier, now. It just makes me think that… someday…”

 

Peter stopped talking, and Bucky’s heart was clenched tight with a cold fear.

 

“Someday…”

 

They were both quiet. They were quiet as the coffee pot spluttered and spat, brewing a fragrant coffee that made the kitchen smell homey and warm. The smell made Bucky feel sick, in the wake of Peter’s revelations. He wondered how it made the kid feel.

 

“Anyway,” Peter shook his head, sliding down off the counter. “I guess that’s what I’m… thinking about, lately. And it made getting a present weird. Especially one so… big.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, watching as Peter pulled a coffee cup from the cabinet and poured himself a cup of coffee. “That makes sense.”

 

He had no idea what to say. What was he supposed to say to that? The kid was clearly hurting, but Bucky, as he previously stated, was not good at emotions. He was a good sounding board, but he was no good at actual advice.

 

“So, um… you want a cup?” Peter offered, turning half towards him and lifting his own cup in offer.

 

Bucky paused, then shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

 

“Sure.” Peter turned back and poured a second cup, then carried it across the kitchen to Bucky and placed it on the table in front of him. He sat down in the seat across from him and the quiet returned, sinking both of them into a mire of discomfort. It was clear to both of them that Peter had expected more from Bucky, and he hadn’t delivered. He’d expected more support, more comfort, some kind of wise words.

 

But Bucky was tired, he hadn’t slept, and he had already been making himself miserable with thoughts of the past before Peter ever came into the room. Bucky didn’t have the words to give him that would make him feel better. He didn’t have a way to make himself feel better, what could he offer to Peter?

 

Both of them knew he’d let Peter down, but Bucky didn’t know how to fix that. Maybe just getting to vent was better than nothing, he thought, staring down at the cup in his hand.

 

“So… do you want to talk?” Peter offered suddenly. “About anything?” It occurred to Bucky, then, that maybe Peter wasn’t disappointed in him. Maybe he’d been thinking about something else.

 

“Not really,” Bucky shrugged.

 

“Are you sure?” Peter pressed. “I don’t mind, if you do. I mean… you weren’t sleeping, either.”

 

Called out.

 

“You sure you want to hear about my shit?” Bucky asked, one eyebrow lifting. “I was… kind of trying to be a shoulder for you to lean on, here.”

 

“We can lean on each other,” Peter insisted. “That’s what… that’s what family is for, right?”

 

“Right,” Bucky agreed slowly, marveling over the fact that this bright and shiny young hero from the twenty-first century called him family. It was so goddamned weird to even think about the circumstances that led to them meeting, let alone being close enough to each other to consider each other family. “That’s what family is for.”

 

“So what’s on your mind?” Peter asked, taking a sip of his coffee before leaning one elbow on the table, propping his chin against his fist. There was still this sound in his voice that made Bucky think of a gangrenous limb: the dead flesh clinging to the living, infecting it and making it sick. This was a distraction, Bucky realized. Peter was trying to get his mind off his own problems.

 

“Not much,” Bucky shrugged, shame flooding his body as he shut the door that was creaking open between them. “Just… nightmares. The usual.”

 

“Oh,” Peter’s shoulders slumped slightly and Bucky took a gulp from his cup, scalding his tongue.

 

“You want to watch a movie or something?” Bucky thought, then cringed as he remembered how Peter had just said that watching movies made him think of his dead family.

 

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. “Okay.”


	5. Déjà Vu

**January**

 

“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” Peter was saying, and Steve was a little worried by how queasy he looked.

 

“It’s going to be fine,” He promised anyway, giving Peter’s shoulder a squeeze. The young man was clearly freaking out a little, and Steve could understand why: learning to drive could be stressful under the best of circumstances, and this was far from that. Peter had already expressed his concerns about the expensive car more than once, but Tony had refused to take it back, so the kid was basically stuck with it. And as long as he was, Tony had insisted, he might as well learn how to drive it.

 

And since Peter had refused a driving instructor under the guise of protecting his identity, that duty had, at Tony’s request, fallen to Steve.

 

The teenager was behind the wheel, looking out of place. His hands were in his lap, fisted in his nerves, and his feet were pulled up by his seat, far from the pedals.

 

“Pull your seat up,” Steve suggested, gesturing. “There’ll be a lever or a button somewhere around the bottom of your seat.”

 

“Um,” Peter looked reluctant to touch anything despite the fact that this was  _ his _ car. “Okay.” The electric hum of the seat was loud in the relative quiet of the car. Tony’s garage, where it was parked, was currently abandoned: not that people came down here, much, but Steve was grateful that Tony hadn’t decided to grace them with his presence for this learning experience. It would probably have only made Peter more uncomfortable. After all: the first few maneuvers were probably going to be pretty graceless, and the fewer witnesses, the better. Steve wasn’t sure Peter’s confidence could take the blow, right now.

 

“Turn the car on,” Steve instructed him, and Peter reluctantly obeyed, his grimace only growing deeper at the quiet purr of the engine. Steve had to admit, this was a  _ nice _ car. “Alright, Peter, good. This is an automatic car, so it’s going to be easier to learn than a stick shift. You know you’ve got your break and your gas, down here,” He leaned over to point to each of the pedals, and Peter nodded mutely. “This is your gear selector. You can see the letters here— park, reverse, neutral, drive, and low.”

 

“What’s low for?” Peter asked, and Steve let out a quiet huff of relief. At least he was listening.

 

“It keeps the transmission from shifting,” Steve told him, leaning back. “You probably won’t need it very often, to be honest with you.” Peter nodded, so Steve continued. “You’ve got your windshield wipers here, your lights and your blinkers are on the other one. Go ahead and give those a test— good. Turn on the left… okay, now the right. Good. Push the stick forward for your brights, those are only for when there’s no one else on the road with you and it’s very dark.”

 

“Okay,” Peter agreed, and his hands at last settled on the wheel.

 

“Feeling good?” Steve prompted hopefully. “Ready to give it a shot?”

 

Peter was quiet for a few moments, then he gave a jerky nod.

 

“Great,” Steve beamed over at him. “Double check that you can see out of all of your mirrors, then you can put it in reverse. When you’re backing up, you want to look over your shoulder— oh, look, this car has one of those cameras in the back— well, it’s still probably best to look for yourself. Once you’re sure that there’s no one behind you, you can start taking your foot off the break.”

 

Peter took a very long time getting out of the spot, but Steve didn’t criticize. This was his first time driving, and it was a garage full of very expensive cars. He couldn’t fault him for his caution.

 

Peter also took a very long time getting out of the garage. 

 

And up the ramp to the parking lot.

 

“Hey, Peter,” Steve said, looking over at the teen. His white-knuckled grip on the wheel didn’t shift as Peter shot him an anxious sidelong glance. “Are you okay?”

 

“I’m,” He paused to swallow. Steve could see him gulp. “Nervous.”

 

“No kidding,” Steve chuckled, grimacing. “Okay. We’re gonna just stay in the lot for now, okay?”

 

Peter’s shoulders slumped immediately and he let out a breath. “Yeah,” he agreed, voice sounding a little better already. “Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks, Steve.”

 

“Sure. So let’s just make a lap around the parking lot, okay? Whatever speed you feel comfortable with.”

 

“Right,” Peter agreed, glancing around for any traffic— good— before pulling out into the lane. This time of day, the parking lot was full of cars, but everyone was already inside the building. Too early for lunch, too late to be coming in. It was good timing, Steve thought with relief.

 

“Driving is pretty intuitive,” Steve assured Peter as the teen tapped against the brakes, rocking them both forward against their seatbelts. “Especially since you have all these driving games, now.” Peter toed the gas and they shot forward, pulling a grunt out of Steve. “You’ll, uh— you’ll get the hang of it in no time.”

 

“Heh,” Peter was frowning behind the wheel, brow furrowed in his concentration as he tried to figure out how to go without jetting forward. Stark really could have started him out with a less sensitive car, Steve had to admit to himself. As a general rule, it seemed like the more expensive a car was, the more difficult it was to handle.  “Yeah. No time at all.”

 

They made the first turn at the end of the parking lot and Peter had some hasty corrections to do, but they managed to not hit anything.

 

“Great,” Steve tried to encourage him, despite the fact that  _ he _ was getting more nervous, now, with Peter’s inexperienced driving becoming more and more apparent.

 

“I think I’m getting the hang of it,” Peter giggled nervously, shooting a look at Steve with an uncomfortable grin.

 

“Great, Peter, that’s great,” Steve repeated, glancing forward. “Alright, try going a little faster.”

 

“Okay,” Peter agreed, and Steve pretended he didn’t notice the way Peter was shaking. The poor kid was so stressed about this, Steve thought with a sympathetic grimace. The least he could do was allow Peter to think Steve didn’t realize it.

 

They inched their way up to about eight miles an hour, then rounded another turn. It was jerky, but marginally better than the first. That may have just been luck, though, based on the way the car wobbled left and right a moment later as Peter tried to compensate for a judgement error that hadn’t even happened.

 

“Straighten out,” Steve instructed, and Peter let the wheel slide between his hands, settling back into a neutral position. “Good, you’ve got it. You’re doing great, Pete.” Thank god they hadn’t gone out onto the road, Steve admitted with no small amount of amusement. That would have been a disaster. “Alright, great. Slow down for this next turn, it’s pretty sharp.”

 

Peter tapped his foot against the pedal and the car jumped forward, slamming directly into a light post.

 

There was a moment of disorientation where Steve wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but then his brain settled back into place as he took in the sight of the hood, slightly crumbled against the post.

 

Steve forced a laugh, tipping his head back. “Just a fender bender,” He told Peter, rolling his head along his shoulders to look at the shaken teen. “Are you okay?”

 

Peter was bent forward, gasping, and Steve immediately straightened. “Peter?”

 

Peter shook his head, pressing his forehead to the wheel, forcing a strangled honk from under the hood of the car. The sound startled the young man back up straight, and Steve got a good look at his face. He was pale, sweating, visibly trembling.

 

“Peter,” Steve repeated, reaching out to put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and the teen shook him off, face contorting into anger.

 

“God!” He yelled, banging his fist against the wheel. It snapped, a piece of it falling away from the rest to clatter onto the floor. “ _ God!” _ Peter’s hands flew to his hair as he threw his head back, snapping the headrest. “What the hell was Tony thinking, giving this to me?  _ God!” _

 

“Peter,” Steve said again, surprised, now. He felt like a broken record, but he didn’t know what to say.

 

“What did he think was going to happen? What did  _ I _ think was going to happen? This is a nightmare! God, I  _ crashed _ this hundred thousand dollar car on the very first time I took it out of the garage— I don’t even have a license!” Peter was screaming at the ceiling and it was terrifying. Hydra? No problem. Gods? Been there, done that. Aliens? Easy as pie. But what was he supposed to do about the panicking teenage superhero? 

 

Deep breaths, Steve, he told himself. This was definitely in his wheelhouse. He just had to… calm Peter down.

 

“Pete,” he said again, firm. It at least did the job well enough to attract Peter’s attention. “Calm down. It’s alright.”

 

“It’s  _ not _ alright!” Peter snapped back, and Steve swallowed. He’d never seen Peter angry like this, he realized. Peter had never directed this kind of emotion towards him, and it was unsettling. “It’s not alright, Steve! I screwed up, just admit it! I crashed the car going  _ ten miles an hour _ in a  _ parking lot _ . God, what if it had been another car? What if it had been a  _ person _ ? What if I’d been going even a little bit faster? You could have been—” Peter choked on his words, dropping his head back against the broken headrest again, eyes squeezing tightly shut as he wrestled with clearly mounting terror.

 

Peter’s aunt, Steve remembered abruptly. Peter’s aunt had died in a car crash. Last January, he realized. A year ago this month.

 

_ God _ .

 

“I’m okay, Peter,” Steve promised. “I’m not hurt. It’s going to be okay.”

 

“What am I going to tell Tony? I crashed his car!”

 

“It’s not his,” Steve said firmly. “It’s yours. You don’t have to tell him anything.”

 

“I can’t just  _ not _ tell him, he’s going to find out, he’s going to find out that I crashed it and then  _ hid _ it from him—”

 

“I’ll talk to him,” Steve assured him. “I’ll tell him what happened. This wasn’t your fault.”

 

“Not my fault?” Peter thought Steve a furious look. “Well it sure as heck isn’t yours, Steve, so whose fault is it, then?”

 

“No one’s fault. It was an accident.” Steve forced his voice into deliberate calmness, but Peter didn’t seem soothed.

 

“You’re so full of crap, Steve,” Peter spat. “Can we cut the  _ Captain America _ routine for a minute? I can’t— I can’t  _ deal _ with that, right now.”

 

Steve blinked, taken aback. “Yeah. Sorry. That’s not what I was trying to do.”

 

Peter glared at him, fingers clutched tightly on the bottom of the wheel, where it wasn’t broken off the steering column. Then he turned away and jerkily climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind himself firmly enough that the glass cracked, earning another muffled, wordless scream of frustration from Peter.

 

Steve got out of the car.

 

Peter wasn’t okay, Steve told himself, rounding the car to find the teenager crouched down, face pressed into his hands.

 

“Peter,” Steve squatted down in front of him, reaching out a hand to grip his shoulder gently. Peter didn’t shake him off, this time. “I’m sorry I pushed you. You weren’t ready and I should have payed more attention to that. I just thought it was first-time jitters. I’m so sorry.”

 

“How am I ever going to be ready?” Peter groaned, fingers dragging through his hair. “I can’t even get behind the wheel without wanting to throw up.”

 

“It’ll fade, with time,” Steve offered, rubbing his arm sympathetically.

 

“What if it doesn’t?” Peter asked quietly, not moving.

 

“Well,” Steve tapped his thumb twice against Peter’s shoulder, making him look up. “I guess it’s a good thing you’ve got a better method of transport.”

 

Peter cracked a weak smile, seemingly in spite of himself, because it vanished quickly.

 

“I guess so,” he agreed, eyes falling back to the pavement.

 

“I’ll tell you what,” Steve said. “Why don’t you go inside. Sit down. Get something to drink. I’ll call a tow company and have them bring your car to a shop, and we’ll get it checked out. Okay?”

 

Peter nodded miserably and stood up. Steve followed. 

 

“I’ll take care of it,” Steve promised, wishing that he had more to give Peter, but he felt helpless in the face of Peter’s trauma. Steve was no therapist, he thought with frustration.

 

“Thanks, Steve,” Peter muttered, pulling away and turning to walk quickly back down into the garage, head tucked low with his shame and fear.

 

PTSD was a  _ bitch _ , Steve thought, grimacing at the sharp pain of empathy he felt as he fished his phone out of his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got almost four weeks worth of chapter updates ready
> 
> If you want to see them early you can join my discord server... I have the rest of this fic and the first chapter of the next up in there. ;P
> 
> https://discord.gg/4hdXVw4


	6. The One Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi babes  
> Since instituting this once-a-week update policy I've kind of... gotten ahead of myself a little  
> I've had five weeks worth of updates already written for like, a week: this chapter, the first three chapters of the NEXT story, and an extra (ft chameleon, obv, bc he's my fave) and I'm working on two more atm.
> 
> So just know that

**January**

 

Peter clambered up into the privacy of his web, reinforcing the older bits so that he wouldn’t fall through again before allowing himself to slump down against it, burying his face into his arms. This was such a nightmare, he thought miserably, emotions rippling and churning inside him. Guilt, anger, resentment, grief, fear— he couldn’t seem to settle into anything long enough to wallow properly.

 

God, Tony was going to be  _ pissed  _ when he found out that Peter crashed his car.

 

Steve was downstairs dealing with it, Peter thought angrily, arms arching upwards so that he could tug at the hair at the back of his head. Steve was dealing with it while Peter was up here feeling sorry for himself.

 

He could hear the crunching metal still ringing in his ears and he squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to swallow down the mounting panic. It was fine, he tried to tell himself. Steve was fine. Peter was fine. It wasn’t the same as the one with Aunt May. It wasn’t the same— they were both  _ fine— _

 

Peter groaned aloud again, wishing that it would vent off any kind of steam at all, but the episode was just building higher and higher, threatening to swallow him whole down into the dark maw of complete breakdown.

 

“Mr. Spider-man,” JARVIS spoke respectfully, sounding very close, since Peter was so close to the ceiling. “Mr. Stark has asked me to ensure that you haven’t been hurt by the incident in the parking lot.”

 

“I’m fine, JARVIS,” Peter ground out, wishing that he  _ had _ gotten hurt so that at least he could explain away this freakout he was having. “I’m fine. Tell Tony I’m fine.”

 

“Yes, sir. He’d like you to visit the infirmary just in case.”

 

“I’m not going to the infirmary, JARVIS,” Peter’s jaw clenched at the irrational fury that was gnawing at the inside of his guts.

 

“Sir, I’m afraid I must insist—”

 

“I’m not  _ going _ !” Peter’s voice lifted into a shout and he felt another surge of guilt. JARVIS didn’t deserve that. He didn’t take it back, though, instead just spraying a coat of webbing over JARVIS’s closest cameras and using a web to pull a blanket over to himself so he could burrow more pathetically into something.

 

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t really make him feel any better.

 

Peter stayed where he was for a while, just letting the emotions run amok in his body. He’d tire himself out eventually, he told himself over and over again. Eventually he’d fall asleep and maybe when he woke up, it would be over.

 

It didn’t feel especially likely, but that was his best hope, at the moment.

 

There was a knock at the door and Peter flinched.

 

“Who is it, JARVIS?” He asked reluctantly, not particularly wanting to talk to anyone, right now.

 

“Mr. Stark, sir” JARVIS told him, sounding like he knew exactly what Peter was thinking. “He says he feels the need to check up on you.”

 

“Great,” Peter groaned. “Will you open the door for me, please?”

 

“Of course,” JARVIS agreed, and Peter heard the click of the latch as the door opened down below.

 

“Hey, kid,” Tony called, and Peter could hear him stepping onto the carpet of the bedroom. “You in here?”

 

“I’m here,” Peter agreed warily, rolling over to look up at the ceiling. He was sure that Tony saw the movement, because there were a few beats of silence before he spoke again.

 

“You mind coming down here? I don’t think my back would take too kindly to the climb up there,” He joked, voice light. It didn’t do much to assure Peter that he wasn’t angry, unfortunately: a business man like Tony was sure to know how to mask the emotion in his voice when he really wanted to.

 

“Okay,” Peter agreed, and he could hear Tony going further into the bedroom as he crawled to the edge of the web and dropped down, flipping once as he tried to force himself to look like he wasn’t completely falling apart. “Hey, Tony,” he muttered, spotting him on the couch, but he found that he wasn’t able to look him in the face. “What’s up?”

 

“Well, looks like you’re not hurt after all,” Tony was looking him up and down, but Peter didn’t look up. “Not if you’re pulling those kinds of acrobatics.”

 

“Yeah, like I said,” Peter agreed, arms crossing sullenly over his chest. “I’m fine.”

 

“Good, good, I’m glad to hear that.” He waited a moment, apparently expecting Peter to say something, but he had no idea what to say, so he remained silent. “Jesus, kid. Can you look at me, please?”

 

Peter looked at him.

 

Tony looked tired, but relieved. Like he’d been actually worried about Peter, he admitted to himself. Now that he thought about it, of  _ course  _ Tony had been worried. Peter had  _ crashed a car _ in his parking lot.

 

“Peter,” Tony said, apparently reading Peter’s mind. “I’m not mad.” Peter looked away again, grimacing. “No, really, I’m not. I’ve crashed way more cars than that. Way more expensive cars, too,” Tony assured him, grinning conspiratorially. “Welcome to the club, bucko.”

 

“This isn’t really a club I wanted to join,” Peter told him dryly, his voice harsher than he had assumed it would be.

 

“Yeah, I know,” Tony shrugged nonchalantly, further incensing Peter’s bad mood. “None of us do. But here we are, right? So we might as well own up and enjoy it.”

 

“I’m not going to  _ enjoy _ it,” Peter snapped, half tempted to leap right back up into his web, even more tempted than that to make a run for it. Out the window, maybe. He had his webshooters on, he’d probably be fine.

 

“Okay, okay,” Tony held up his hands appeasingly. “Believe it or not, Spidey, I didn’t come up here to make you mad. I just wanted to check in with you, make sure that you’re okay. And I just wanted to let you know— I’m going to cover the repair costs for you.”

 

Peter stood still, staring at Tony with an incredulous expression. Tony was giving him the press smile, clearly surprised by Peter’s lack of response and trying to hide it.

 

“No,” Peter shook his head eventually, arms crossing over his chest. “No way.”

 

“No way?” Tony blinked, the smile falling away from his face. “Yes way, kid. Look, I pay you pretty well, but not enough that you should feel the need to pay for it on your own.”

 

“I don’t want you to,” Peter’s voice was razor thin and just as sharp, slicing through the air between them. Peter wondered if it had cut Tony, too.

 

“Peter,” Tony pushed himself to his feet, and Peter sucked in a breath at the sight of it. He moved like his back hurt, Peter noticed. He moved like he had old injuries that had never healed right. He moved like he was getting… “Where’s all this pride coming from? This isn’t like you.”

 

“How do you know what’s like me?” Peter snapped. “Tony, you don’t know me as well as you think you do. If you did, you’d know that I don’t feel comfortable with all this stuff you keep doing for me!”

 

“I  _ do _ know that,” Tony said, surprising Peter. “Nat explained all that pretty early on. She said that when you grow up without a lot of money, you have trouble accepting gifts. You don’t want people doing things for you. She  _ explained  _ all that.”

 

“It’s not just that,” Peter exclaimed, feeling helpless. How could he possibly explain? How could he  _ begin _ to tell Tony what it was really like, being in his shoes.

 

“Okay,” Tony’s arms crossed now, too, impatiently. “So what else is it?”

 

“You wouldn’t get it,” Peter spat, feeling like a cliche, and leapt upwards, sticking his feet to the ceiling just long enough to change course and vault into his web again, safely out of Tony’s view. With any luck, the man would take the hint and leave.

 

But of course, the Parker Luck was infamous, and Tony’s Iron Will was even moreso. “Peter come back down here,” Tony snapped, and the tone he used was so paternal that it left Peter reeling. His fear spiked and he remained silent, settling into the corner so he could lean against the wall, listening to Tony pacing down below. “Jesus, Peter. Look: I’m  _ really _ not trying to make you feel bad by giving you stuff. It’s just— it’s what I do. It’s the one thing I  _ can _ do. I’m shit at emotional stuff, kid, and I’m not great at showing… honest emotions, I guess. That all got stomped out of me a long time ago, but I don’t want that to happen to you, kid, so I’m trying to— hell.” Tony sucked in a sharp breath and Peter leaned his head back into the corner, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m trying to show you that I… want you around in the only way I know how.

 

“I worked on this bedroom for you so you wouldn’t feel like a guest anymore,” Tony continued, from the sound of it standing by the window, now. “I wanted you to know that this is your home and that you’re not a  _ guest _ here. I want you to stay. And… I made those new upgrades to your webshooters because… I guess I wanted you to know that…” He was clearly struggling putting his thoughts together, and Peter wished he would stop. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want Tony to  _ tell him  _ all this. “You’re doing great things, out there, and I just wanted you to feel validated in that, I guess. And the suit— well, that was just me worrying about you. I added that parachute just in time, though, right?” He laughed, and the sound was bitter and aching.

 

“And then the car— you deserve more than life has given you so far, Peter, you really do. I want to give you those things. I want you to have everything this world has to offer. And that’s why I want to pay for it for you. I don’t want one mistake to keep you from doing things. I can  _ help _ you, so why shouldn’t I?”

 

There was quiet, then. “Jesus. This is pathetic,” Tony scoffed. “I know I probably should just mind my own business and let you run your own life, but  _ shit _ , kid. It scares me, sometimes, thinking about what might happen if you decided you didn’t want to be here anymore, or, god forbid, if something  _ happened _ to you—”

 

It was quiet again, then. Peter was biting back against the acrid pain of remembered loss as he stared down at the web, wondering what Tony was doing down below.

 

“Damnit. I’ll go,” Tony finally muttered, and it was only thanks to Peter’s enhanced hearing that he heard him at all. “I’ll check on you later.”

 

There were muffled footsteps against the carpet, and he had almost made it to the door when Peter finally broke.

 

“Tony,” he called down, but he didn’t move from his spot in the back corner of his webbing fortress. “Wait.”

 

“What is it, Peter?” Tony asked, and he sounded tired, and he sounded  _ old _ , and Peter was so.. _. _

 

“I—” Now it was his turn, Peter thought with a grimace, to try and speak without having any idea what it was he wanted to say. He was torn between his desire to bottle up his fears and his longing to vent. “I’m scared.”

 

“Of what?” Tony was more attentive, now.

 

“Of losing you,” Peter answered, feeling his muscles locking up as he let himself indulge in the thoughts that he usually tried to stuff down. “And the others. I’m not stupid, Tony. I know that… it’s inevitable. And what with the whole superhero thing, odds are it might be sooner than later.” He swallowed. “I’m scared of so many things now, Tony. I’m really, really afraid. I’m terrified to drive because of the crash that killed my aunt. And I’m afraid to get close to people because of what happened to Gwen. And I’m scared of being helpless, because of what happened to my uncle. And I’m scared— to have a family again, because every time I finally start to think that maybe things are going to be okay again, something happens and then I lose everything. I don’t know how I can bear it again, Tony, but I don’t know how to stop it.

 

“I try not to think about how much I care about you guys, and I try not to think about how dangerous it is to be a superhero, and I try not to think about all the ways you guys could die. I almost lost Steve, on that mission in New Zealand— he was  _ falling _ , and no one could save him, so I— Tony, I was so  _ afraid _ , and we could have  _ both _ died, and I was sure for a while that we  _ would _ , but I was so scared of losing him—” Peter’s voice broke then, and his voice was so tight that he couldn’t speak for several moments. Tony stepped into the silence.

 

“Peter, we are not going anywhere,” The fierce determination in his voice wasn’t as reassuring as Peter would have hoped. “We’re staying right here with you. I know that being Iron Man isn’t safe, but I do everything I can to protect us. We all do. It’s not easy for any of us to let our guards down, to let each other in, but… Peter, we’re all we’ve got. I wouldn’t have gotten this far if it weren’t for the team. And I don’t mean because of the fights. I would have lost my  _ mind _ by now if I didn’t have the rest of these guys to remind me that there’s other things to count on than the next disaster.”

 

“Other things,” Peter repeated in a choked voice. “It’s hard to think of other things.”

 

“Birthday parties,” Tony told him. “Holidays. Dogs running around in the park. Watching movies and eating popcorn. Digging popcorn out of couch cushions. Good food. Pissing off Clint just for the hell of it.”

 

“What are you doing?” Peter asked, feeling a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

 

“Shut up, Parker, and think about all these other things I’m reminding you of.” Tony sounded like he was grinning. “The way the New York skyline looks at night from far away. Sunlight through leaves. Playing video games. Drinking coffee alone when it’s cold but you’re somewhere quiet and warm. Soft sheets. Crisp suits. Tee shirts that are one or two sizes too big and they’re the most comfortable thing you own.”

 

Peter left his corner, going to flop onto his belly at the edge of the web, where he could see Tony. Tony was looking back up at him. “What else is there?” He asked, fingers plucking at the outermost strand of web.

 

“Taking a long walk,” Tony told him, watching his face. “Finishing a project at work. Making a new friend. Busy streets. The kind of music that puts goosebumps on your arms. Getting in a hot shower when you’ve been cold. The way it feels to  _ really _ relax after a long time of being tense.”

 

“Those sound nice,” Peter said, feeling some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders. It wasn’t the relaxation that Tony was talking about, but it was something, that was for sure.

 

“Come down here, Peter,” Tony said, beckoning. “Just for a minute, then you can go hide in your web for as long as you want.”

 

Peter cracked a weary smile and rolled forward, dropping flat-footed to the floor.

 

“I’m sorry,” Tony told him. “I didn’t mean to make you feel so crappy.”

 

“It’s okay,” Peter shrugged one shoulder. “I’m sorry, too.”

 

“We’re good,” Tony promised, and they were both hesitating, both fidgeting, and then Tony stepped forward and pulled Peter into a tight hug. Peter hugged him back just as hard, cheek pressed against Tony’s shoulder as if the mere contact could provide him the proof that he needed that Tony really wasn’t going to go anywhere. From the way Tony’s arms shook with the pressure of holding Peter so tightly, he was after the same thing.

 

And hey, maybe it could work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pop an Asprin and Call it a Day  
> (Or: Five Times Tony Gives Peter Something He Doesn't Need and One Time it's Something He Does)  
> (Or: Five Times Peter is Afraid He'll Lose His New Family and One Time He Isn't)
> 
> So that was the first 5+1! What did you think? Because I've got a couple more in this format planned for you.
> 
> Get ready for the next story, beginning one week from now: Clear Blue Morning!  
> (Or: Five Senses that Get Peter into Trouble and One That Doesn't)  
> (Or: Five Times Peter Makes New Friends and One Time He Doesn't)
> 
> What can I say? I like to really pack those themes in there just as tight as I can

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!
> 
> BIG THANKS to my beta, spiccceeyyy! Please enjoy this plug: https://spiccceeyyy.tumblr.com/


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